PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM: MEDICAL STUDENTS’ SURVEY

The article deals with the peculiarities of the development and assessment of medical university students’ professional identity in a foreign language classroom. The main purpose of the study is to determine whether medical students are aware of the possibilities of their professional self-realization, what are their plans and motives regarding further career, as well as to identify possible ways to improve and develop their professional identity and positive professional image. It is successfully carried out while studying the future profession and its characteristic features through the comparative analysis of the Russian and foreign educational systems, medical professional activities in different countries of the world. The expediency of a wider use of active learning technologies in the educational process of a modern medical university in order to intensify self-determination and self-identification of students is shown. The results of a survey of medical university students are presented. It is revealed that future doctors come to the profession quite consciously, but at the same time they are practice-oriented and narrowly focused. It is concluded that there is a need to expand students’ ideas about the prospects and opportunities of their future profession, while a foreign language class can serve as a good platform for the development of a positive professional “Self-image”. It is shown that professional identity development in a foreign language class can be focused on several aspects: direct — working with professionally oriented foreign language skills as a component of a positive “I-image” of a specialist and indirect — having an impact through the studied content, formation of an attitude towards the chosen profession.